1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of printing and, in particular, to workflow architectures for printing systems, such as a print shop, having a multi-layer platform for handling workflows.
2. Discussion of Related Art
A print shop generally refers to a workplace where printing is performed, typically to provide commercial printing services. Customers use print shops to print catalogs, manuals, books, magazines, brochures, etc. Print shops may be large production print shops that implement large inline printers (i.e., continuous feed printers) to print long run-length jobs for a few customers. For example, a large production print shop may print customer bills for a credit card company. Most print shops are smaller shops that print short run-length jobs for many different customers. For example, a small print shop may print magazines, catalogs, books, brochures, etc, for a variety of different customers.
Because most small print shops service many different customers, the small print shops have to be able to change their workflow and system configuration to handle different jobs. A workflow generally refers to some organization of resources, devices, and roles in a print shop for providing printing services. For example, a small print shop may include a black and white printer, a color printer, a cutting device, and a binding device. For a workflow of one customer, the print shop may use the color printer and the cutting device to generate brochures for this customer. For a workflow of another customer, the print shop may use the color printer, the black and white printer, the cutting device, and the binding device to generate books for this customer. Due to the needed flexibility of the small print shops and the cost of new, large inline devices, many of the devices in the print shop are either offline devices or near-line devices as opposed to inline devices. Thus, to switch configurations quickly to handle different types of jobs, the small print shop does not need to re-configure an inline system, but may instead use the offline devices or near-line devices.
The workflow architecture of a print shop is the platform upon which a job is created or generated, and then subsequently executed on the devices in the print shop. The typical workflow architecture as presently practiced comprises software that is run on one or more computers in the print shop. The software is customized for each print shop based on the particular devices used in the print shop and the type of jobs that will be handled in the print shop. For instance, if a print shop has two printers from two different vendors and a cutting device from another vendor, then the customized software for that print shop is programmed based on those specific devices being used.
The customized software allows a print shop operator to create one or more jobs, manage the jobs, schedule the jobs, etc. To provide such functionality, the operating parameters, capabilities, and other information for each of the devices (i.e., the printers, cutting devices, binding devices, etc) in the print shop are defined in the customized software. The customized software may provide a job editor that displays the devices in the print shop and their associated, pre-defined capabilities to the print shop operator. The print shop operator may then create a job by selecting one or more devices in the print shop, and by defining the processes to be executed by each of the devices for the job. For instance, the print shop operator may first select a color printer to print a particular printable file (e.g., a PDF file) to generate printed pages. The print shop operator may then select a folding device to put one or more creases in the printed pages to generate brochures.
When the job and an associated job ticket are created through the job editor, the customized software transmits the job ticket to the devices selected for the job. The job ticket indicates what printable files are needed for the job (if any), and what process(es) should be executed on that particular device.
One problem with present workflow architectures for print shops is that the architecture is inflexible. If a new device is added to the print shop, then the customized software either needs to be replaced with new software that is programmed with the capabilities and operating parameters of the new device. If an existing device in the print shop is upgraded or otherwise changed, then the customized software likewise needs to be replaced with new software that is programmed with the new capabilities and operating parameters of the existing device. Replacing the customized software in a print shop can be expensive and inefficient.